


For a Given Value of Silence

by Westwardflight



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 00:09:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Westwardflight/pseuds/Westwardflight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pepper never had much patience for the unspoken. She preferred the direct method when possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For a Given Value of Silence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mumblemutter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mumblemutter/gifts).



> Thank you to [Amine_Eyes](http://archiveofourown.org/users/amine_eyes/profile) for her beta-ing and general amazingness.

Pepper never had much patience for the unspoken. She preferred the direct method when possible.

They spent so much time talking around each other. They would prowl around each other, probing, then back away in the way they paused, chose this word over that one, and retreated back to physics, biology, and engineering. Both men had spent their whole lives using words to protect themselves; Bruce to make himself invisible, Tony to hide in plain sight.

It took Pepper a while to learn their language, to understand the things unsaid between the clever quips and scientific debate. She watched as they developed an easy relationship. She watched as Tony coded messages of _want_ and _need_ into the conversation, hidden in plain sight behind brazen flirtation and a truly inappropriate amount of touching. She watched as Bruce buried his _want_ and _need_ so deeply that she wasn’t always sure she could see it beneath the layers of self-deprecation and guilt.

She found herself an active participant as Bruce quietly stopped avoiding her and slowly, oh so slowly, began to make a cup of tea for her when he made one for himself, made Tony sign all the forms she put in front of him before he gave Tony the results they’d been waiting for, and when he deliberately steered conversations between the three of them away from incomprehensible science talk so that she could participate. Bruce was a stabilising presence in their life, expertly moulding himself to fit in the cracks and crevices in their relationship.

One day she tried to tell him that he doesn’t have to do that. They don’t need to need him, they already wanted him. He brushed her off with an apologetic smile.

So she sat Tony down and talked to him. Then they sat Bruce down and talked to him.

To no-one’s surprise, a frank discussion about everyone’s needs and wants was useful and productive.

Tony was as serious as he was capable of being when he told Bruce how his smile was one of the highlights of Tony’s day and how much he would like Bruce to unpack the bug-out bag Tony knew he kept under his bed. The Tower could be his home if he wanted, with or without the obscene amounts of sex Tony would like to have with him.

Bruce was as honest as he was capable of being when he told Tony that he was terrified of destroying, in both a literal and figurative sense, the people he loved and how Tony and Pepper are the best people he knew. Of course the Tower could be a home to him, he never doubted that, he just couldn’t ask them to put their lives at risk for him.

It was at this point that Pepper felt an intervention was necessary. Her two beautiful boys had the combined emotional maturity of a pencil sharpener. It wasn’t their fault, but it did needlessly complicate things that already complicated enough like love and lust and home.

She asked Bruce for an honest assessment of the risk, reminded him they are grown-ups who were capable of making their own decisions about acceptable risk levels.

She told Tony that people don’t change just because he wanted them to, reminded him that Bruce is a grown-up with his own coping mechanisms and they aren’t going to change just because Tony liked his smile.

Both Pepper and Bruce ignored him when he added that he also liked Bruce’s chest hair and truly indecent levels of intelligence.

When Bruce asked her what she wanted, she didn’t even need to pause. She could already imagine an array of futures in which she loved Bruce as much as she loved Tony. She could picture them in crisp and clear detail. And that was what she told him. That future, those futures, was what she wanted, assuming he was similarly interested.

Bruce very eloquently expressed his interest by taking her hand.

They both looked at Tony, seeking confirmation that he was okay with this development, though neither foresaw a problem. The smile on his face was as eloquent as Bruce’s fingers intertwining with hers. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

Terms could be re-negotiated, boundaries re-defined. She reminded them of this, of the value of actually saying what you mean and putting the intense self-awareness they both possess to good use, but she let herself be distracted by gentle kisses and warm touches. The groundwork has been laid; there will be time tomorrow to make sure they really understood.

Pepper Potts had no time for the unspoken, not when the direct approach yielded such fruitful results.


End file.
